Berkshire Blanket Inc.

On February 16, 2006, Cordova, Smart & Williams, LLC announced the acquisition of Berkshire Blanket Inc., one of the nation's leading designers and marketers of premium quality blankets, throws and bedroom related products. Based in Ware, Massachusetts, Berkshire Blanket was founded in 1993 by Rick Lotuff, the company's CEO. Several years ago, Berkshire began outsourcing its production to lower cost locations around the world while improving its design and marketing capabilities at the same time. These strategic moves have spurred Berkshire’s explosive growth in recent years. In March 2005, the Berkshire management team engaged Watch Hill Partners, as its exclusive financial advisor, to conduct a sale process with the goal of identifying a value-added financial partner to assist the company in exploiting additional growth opportunities.

We conducted a competitive auction process with a number of middle market financial sponsors that had consumer products and retail expertise. We positioned Berkshire as an attractive growth story highlighting its strong year-over-year financial performance, scalable platform and deep management team. As a result, CSW submitted a premium valuation for Berkshire from which we worked swiftly to structure an attractive deal for the management team and the company's founding shareholders. Mr. Lotuff retained a minority equity stake and continued in his role as CEO. In keeping with our promise of senior-level execution, we had at least one partner at every meeting or conference call held during the transaction process.